"Well, sir, it was like this," said the woman. "Last night, about eleven, I heard Miss Asta go along the corridor past my room, and downstairs into the servants' quarters. She was gone, perhaps, twenty minutes, and then I heard her repass again to her room and lock the door. I know she did that, because I heard it lock distinctly. Miss Asta sleeps at the other end of the corridor to where I sleep--just at the corner as you go round to the front staircase. Well, I suppose, after that I must have dropped off to sleep. But just after two o'clock we were all awakened by hearing loud, piercing screams of terror. At the first moment of awakening I was too frightened to move, but realising that it was Miss Asta I jumped up instantly, slipped on a dressing-gown, and ran along to the door of her room. Several of the other servants, awakened by the cries, were out in the corridor. She had, however, locked her door, and we could not get in. I shouted to her to open it, for she was still shrieking, but she did not do so. At that moment Mr Shaw came along in his dressing-gown, greatly alarmed, and with his assistance we burst in the door." "Then he helped you to do that?" "Yes, sir," replied the woman. "Inside, we found the poor young lady in her nightdress crouched down on the floor by the ottoman at the foot of the bed. She was still crying hysterically and quivering with fear from head to foot. I bent, and taking her in my arms asked her what was the matter, for as we had entered, somebody had switched on the electric light. For a moment she looked at me fixedly with a strange intense expression, as though she did not recognise me. Then she gasped the words: `Death!--hand!--hand!' That was all. Next moment she fell back in my arms, and I thought her dead. Mr Shaw was beside himself with grief. He helped to lift her on to her bed and tried all he could to restore her with brandy and sal volatile, but without avail. In the meanwhile I had telephoned to Doctor Redwood, who arrived about half an hour later, and he's been here ever since." "And how is Miss Asta now?" I inquired eagerly. "Still unconscious. The doctor has, I fear, but little hope of her recovery, sir. She has, he declared, received some great and terrible shock which has affected her heart." The circumstances were strangely parallel with those of Guy Nicholson's mysterious end. "No one has formed any conclusion of what caused the shock?" "No, sir. None of us, not even the doctor, can guess what `hand' and `death' could signify more than the usual figure of speech," the woman replied. "To me, when she spoke, she seemed to be strangely altered. Her poor face seemed thin, pinched, and utterly bloodless, and when she fell back into my arms I was convinced that the poor thing had gone." "You are quite certain the door of her room was locked?"